1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator having a heat-insulating housing and a door mounted on the housing, the door being provided with a door-opening aid.
It has become common practice in the case of refrigerators, in particular, in the case of refrigerators provided with large-surface-area doors, to provide the doors with door-opening aids to make them easier to open. Such door-opening aids operate by converting a tensile force to which the door is subjected by the user into a displacement force that acts between the rear side of the door and the front side of the housing.
Such a refrigerator with the door-opening aid is disclosed, for example, in European Patent 0 891 524 B1.
This prior art door-opening aid is formed by a two-armed lever that is articulated on a side flank of the door, a first longer arm of the lever serving as the door handle and a second shorter arm being pressed against the front side of the housing when the door handle is pulled, and, thus, displacing the door away from the housing.
One problem with this known door-opening aid is that, for precise guidance of the pivoting movement of the door handle, it is necessary to provide guide rails that have to be installed on the lateral flank of the door of the refrigerator, projecting away from this flank, between the flank and the door handle. Such a configuration results in the door handle projecting laterally to a considerable extent beyond the door. If the door handle also projects laterally beyond the housing of the refrigerator, this gives rise to problems with setting the refrigerator up in the immediate vicinity of kitchen units or other appliances. In particular, it is not possible for two refrigerators that are disclosed in European Patent 0 891 524 B1 to be set up directly one beside the other.
The problem of lateral projection could easily be solved if a force-transmitting element could be guided through a bore in the door. This is not practicable, however, because such a bore would interrupt the continuity of the door leaf and would create a heat bridge. The production outlay would also be considerable. This can only be avoided if the force exerted by the user is directed laterally around the door, as is the case in European Patent 0 891 524.
Although it should be possible, in the case of a known refrigerator, to avoid the lateral projection of the door handle by the making the door narrower, while maintaining the same outer dimensions of the housing, such a measure also decreases the surface area on the front side of the appliance housing that can be covered by the door and, thus, the useful volume that the refrigerator can have.
Another possibility would, indeed, be to provide the lateral flank of the door with a niche and to fit the door handle in this niche, but such a configuration would result in a considerable increase in the outlay for producing the door and, thus, in rising costs.